


bound and determined

by vampyrekat



Category: Entwined - Heather Dixon
Genre: But I wrote it so here it is, F/M, I also don't think there's really any fandom for this, I dunno I wanted it to go one step further before she kicked his ass, it's just me - Freeform, the shipping is not really the point so much as how interestingly messy their dynamic is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-24 16:33:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampyrekat/pseuds/vampyrekat
Summary: “There are rules to the Entwine, my lady. If a lady is caught, she owes the gentleman a kiss — or am I wrong?”A short canon-compliant interlude during their time at the pavilion.





	bound and determined

**Author's Note:**

> So, when I read _Entwined_ I didn't realize Azelea is supposed to be sixteen or so, and like the one other person in the fandom who I've spoken to, I'm pretending she's in her twenties.

They had stopped moving, Keeper’s hold on the sash strong as steel, and Azalea was forced to still or to trip. The fabric was lashed tight around her wrists, almost painfully so, and Azalea suddenly remembered Keeper’s playful rhyme about spiders and webs and the flies that wandered in. Only she hadn’t wandered in alone; she had brought eleven flies with her, one barely old enough to eat solids let alone escape, and ten that were still innocent.

Azalea was not so innocent. She was the only one who had to marry, and so she was the only one who had thought about what entrapment might look like. True, she had thought it would taste more like parchment and ink and silver rings than raw wrists and halted steps and hungry black eyes, but — she had thought, and she recognized it.

She had thought about kissing Keeper, when the pavilion was a music box world instead of a nightmare, and her eyes flickered to his lips - as colorless as Mother’s had been, almost a year ago, but thinner and really, as anger surged through her, not like Mother at all - before she met his gaze again.

Keeper was watching her with something like curiosity, and Azalea felt herself blush to the tips of her ears as the moment stretched on, crystalline and silent. It wasn’t the curiosity of a gentleman in his eyes, but the sly curiosity of a cat who had finally got a mouse between his paws and was wondering where to bite first.

“You won,” Azalea said, and her voice didn’t shake. “Now untie me.”

“It’s nearly Christmas,” Keeper purred smoothly, and his voice held some tremble. “After so many months of arranging presents for you, it does seem right that I’d get one back —”

“I said, untie me.” Azalea tried to infuse her voice with the stern command that the King used, and nearly succeeded. Keeper cocked his head to the side.

“There are rules to the Entwine, my lady. If a lady is caught, she owes the gentleman a kiss — or am I wrong?” His raised eyebrow challenged her to contradict him. Azalea held firm, even as his fingers twisted the sash around his own hand, tightening her bonds but tying him to them as well. The rest of the pavilion seemed dim, somehow, as though time and space had stretched between her and her sisters, leaving her on an island with no one but Keeper. Not unlike when he’d marooned them on the bridge the first day they’d come, she realized, and wished she could laugh. She should have known immediately what sort of spider he was; her own desires had blinded her.

“I have never heard of such a rule, Mr. Keeper,” she said primly. “It would be highly improper — why, just imagine!”

He smirked, his dimples showing, and she realized with a shock that he had never stopped being handsome, merely ceased to be appealing to her, but that was forgotten when he could dance so smoothly it was almost like flying, when he spoke with that soft voice and when —

“Perhaps I’m old-fashioned,” he allowed, and yanked her bound hands to his chest. They throbbed painfully under the tight sash, and Azalea bit back a cry, her head tipping back to glare up at him before Keeper swooped in and pressed his colorless lips to hers.

He did kiss like he danced, with a smooth fluidity that felt unnatural and almost inhuman. Azalea wanted to protest, but his mouth stifled any sound she could make, and besides - it was confusing and overwhelming. She had never been kissed, she had only thought about it, and now here she was, a princess in a fairy story that was trapped and kissed and weren’t princesses supposed to win? Dark sorcerers weren’t supposed to catch them or kiss them or keep them.

Keeper, seemingly frustrated with her imitation of a marble statue, pulled back and cruelly twisted the sash tighter. Azalea bit her lip and didn’t give him the pleasure of a cry.

“Let me go, Keeper.”

“A kiss, my lady, and I will,” he purred, a near-violent edge to his voice, like waves crashing on rocks, and Azalea felt a chill run down her spine. He had never used a harsh tone with any of them before, even when the little girls had cling to his legs and begged for reels or waltzes or sweets. But Azalea had earned it by refusing to kiss him back, and she was afraid of what that meant.

“You have had your kiss,” she informed him, and pulled back, ignoring the throb in her wrists. The Entwine was not supposed to be done with a rough fabric like had used, and most men would hold their partner’s wrists lightly at the end, so as not to hurt them. Keeper, of course, had thrown that to the wind, and Azalea wished she was surprised - or even off put - by how he refused to treat her like a delicate flower anymore.

“A real kiss, princess.” He pulled one of his hands from the sash, shifting the end to his left hand as easily as a rider might transfer reins before pulling the gold and black watch from thin air and showing Azalea that it had stopped. “We have as much time as we need,” he informed her with a smile, although he looked tired again as the watch vanished. Azalea lunged against the sash without thinking - it wasn’t her watch, she had to return it to Lord Bradford - and Keeper almost laughed as she pulled back sulkily.

“If I kiss you, you will let me go?” Azalea demanded. “You swear it?”

“Oh, of course.” His eyes seemed curiously bright. “I can’t swear on silver anymore, but rest assured — I don’t break my word.”

Azalea wanted to scream, to rake her fingernails down his face until he was no longer handsome, to bite until blood bubbled up under her teeth and she could feel him hurt. The world around them was black - her rage or his magic, she couldn’t tell - and she lunged forward instead, pressing her lips to his so violently their teeth nearly collided. Keeper, apparently unable to be shaken, leaned back with her motion, his free hand slipping up to knot in her loose hair smoothly, as though he’d been expecting this. His lips parted under hers and Azalea could almost feel the curve of his smug smile as he pressed them closer together, her bound wrists trapped between their chests. Her heart was beating frantically and she could feel —

Nothing. There was no beating in his chest, no rise or fall of breath, and she gasped. She’d never noticed, during their dances — he never seemed out of breath or flushed with life, and she had never noticed. Keeper growled against her, his chest vibrating warmly against her fingers, and his tongue brushed against her teeth and Azalea wondered if she would faint again, because he had no heartbeat but hers was going fast enough for two.

He pulled back just enough to drag his teeth over her bottom lip, and Azalea hissed before lunging forward to catch his mouth again and sink her teeth into his bottom lip hard enough that she tasted blood and he twitched against her.

Good.

Azalea let go and drew back, noticing that his eyes stayed shut and there was a perfect semicircle of imprints on his bottom lip. She felt a shiver of pain in her wrists and noticed that his hands were shaking where they held the sash.

“Untie me,” she asked, for the third time. Her voice shook more than she wanted to admit, a tremble that undermined her authority.

“I don’t want to,” he said sharply, and his hands convulsed on the sash, drawing an involuntary moan of pain from Azalea. His eyes flickered open and seemed somehow darker than before as he watched her; Azalea froze under his gaze. “I want you to stay here, and perhaps if you did — yes, I could be convinced. I could stay too, and let your mother free, and your sisters — if you stayed. If you swore.”

It would solve her problems, without punishing anyone else. Azalea let her eyes press shut for a second and missed the look of shock that flitted over Keeper’s face as she shook her head to dislodge the thought. Her sisters and mother would be free. She could keep him imprisoned here, so long as she was jailer; surely it wouldn’t be so bad. Keeper loved the dance like she did and she could while away the time like that, forever. Forever. Away from the sun, and her sisters, and Lord Bradford, and the snow and the gardens —

Her eyes snapped open and she did her best to glare at him.

“I said, unblind me. I fulfilled my bargain, and you swore to do so — if you do not, I will never trust your word again.”

He groaned, and started to unwrap her wrists. Azalea felt her face flaming again and strive to ignore it regally.

“It would not matter,” Keeper said, in his low voice, “if I lost your trust.” But he kept unwrapping, and Azalea stayed silent, lest he stop. Her wrists were raw beneath the sash, the material having scratched at her soft skin until she bled. The sash vanished from his hand and he held her gloves hands for a long moment, then pulled one up roughly so he could press his lips over a bleeding patch of skin. Azalea felt her breath catch - this was outside the bargain - and froze under the gentle caress. It wasn’t quite an apology - she doubted he knew how to give one even if he wanted to - but it was soft and tender and the look in his night back eyes nearly undid her. He let go of her a moment later, and the syrupy, molasses feeling of time began to ebb away, light spilling back in. His opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it with a sharp snap, and Azalea didn’t look away until Jessamine slammed into her knees and she was forced to look down.

When she looked up, Keeper was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this fandom before, but I finished the book and this sort of wrote itself via my fingers, so, enjoy. I guess.  
> My writing blog can be found at [vampyrekatwrites](http://vampyrekatwrites.tumblr.com/). Feel free to PM me or send asks! The interaction is what keeps me writing.


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